The Last Holiday Pattern of the Year: Part 2

It's finished!

I was beginning to wonder if I'd make it before Christmas arrives. It didn't make my deadline by a couple of days, but here it is at last. My hubby's newest favorite. Again.

Three tabletop pieces made from so very versatile blocks. All the pieces use the small block with the poinsettia in the center, and the larger pieces are made with added corner triangles holding holly leaves and berries. I can just see these basic blocks put together in different ways - everything from a long, thin table runner to a full size bed quilt.

As always, the sewing wasn't hard at all. It stitched up quickly without any hitches. The problem? Writing the pattern. And the math!!

Thank goodness for my facebook friends!

Facebook friends, I LOVE you!!

Here's the story.

I'd never written a pattern that contains three different sizes and I was having an awful time figuring out how to do it. I settled on the knit and crochet method of places the various measurements in parenthesis from smallest to largest. It worked for me, but I wasn't sure, so I asked the folks on facebook. 

Cutting Instructions                                   Sewing Instructions     

Oh my! Talk about confusion! It was back to the drawing board and a brand new plan of attack.

Charts for the fabric and cutting instructions:

And a totally different approach to sewing instructions:

I think it's sorted out! 

So thank you again my dear friends on facebook! I come to you with all of my problems and you are such wonderful helpers!

I'm not done with thanking people! I needed photographs. My dining room table has a glass top and sits in the end of the room far from windows. Not good for pictures of table runners! My friend, Dee, came to the rescue with the offer of a dining room to use for my photo session. She let me rearrange furniture, and after photos were taken we had a lovely visit over a cup of coffee. Thanks, Dee! I enjoyed every minute of our time together.

The final photos are the result of my visit to Dee's house. 

Table Runner

Medium size topper

 Small topper

And that's it! No more holiday patterns this year! I don't know what comes next, but it won't be for Christmas and it will have to wait until my cookies are baked! I'll start with these orange, walnut refrigerator cookies because they keep the best.

Happy Stitching, Everyone!!

Oh, if you'd like to follow me on facebook, you can find me here: 

https://www.facebook.com/KLee2Strings

The Last Holiday Pattern of the Year: Part 1

I haven't written in my blog, I haven't posted a new pattern, I haven't kept up with my housework, and I haven't even begun preparing for Thanksgiving. I would feel horribly guilty if it weren't for this one little thing that's kept me busy and totally preoccupied.

What can need so much attention? The blame all belongs to the last holiday pattern of the year. It's not the last pattern, mind you, just the last one with a holiday theme.

This one is taking forever! I'm making three different variations of the pattern, too. Thank goodness, it's turning into something I really, really like!  From the beginning I had a vision in my head, but creating that vision in fabric has been quite a challenge this time.

The background was the easy part. I finished the piecing earlier in the week and only needed to fill in the blank white spaces with color. 

The appliques, though! Oh my goodness, what a marathon of trial and error! I don't know how much paper I must have gone through in designing them. What should be so complex about poinsettias and holly that the planning should take three days?  

Thank goodness, I was finally finished with the templates yesterday afternoon. The poinsettia appliques are in three sections each. Aligning every little piece of a petal of leaf individually was just too much like working with a jigsaw puzzle. 

I had errands to run this morning, but the afternoon was spent fusing appliqes in place. By dinnertime they were firmly attached to the table runner, the small table topper, and the really small table topper. Tomorrow I plan to blanket stitch everything in place.  I hope to be be finished with the sewing and the pattern by Thanksgiving. "Hope" is the key word here. Fingers crossed!

I won't give everything away quite yet, but this shows the poinsettias before the applique stitching. 

Wishing you all a wonderful week!

It's going to be a busy one at my house! A pattern to finish, a birthday cake to bake, and Thanksgiving dinner is at my house this year! Yikes!

A Christmas Elf and a Trick or Two

I always have fun with my sewing, but this little guy was especially delightful to make. It was a special request, and I'm so glad Sue asked for an elf!

Thank you, thank you, Sue!

It started with a quick pencil sketch.

As always,  I took it to my husband for his opinion.  When his face broke into a smile I knew it was okay.

I made the templates in the morning and spent most of the afternoon choosing fabrics. Lots of Christmas prints and a small scrap of a "flesh" colored solid. That "flesh" color could be anything on the spectrum from pale cream to deep ebony, but I chose the color that matches my own family for this one.

Trick # 1

"Where did you find the flesh color fabric?" my friend Midge, asked. 

Quilting cotton in most flesh tones is pretty hard to come by, so I modified the color of my fabric with an easy trick. I started with Kona cotton in peach, then I used the old trick of altering the color of the fabric with tea. 

The original Kona cotton and four little sample sections for testing color.

Here are the instructions:

1. Get out bowl that is sufficiently large to hold your fabric with room to spare and place 2 teabags into the bowl for every cup of water that you will need to completely immerse your piece of fabric. 

2. Pour boiling water over the tea bags and let it steep for about 10 minutes. 

3. Drop the fabric into the tea. Swirl it a bit to ensure an even stain. If you need to leave the fabric unattended, make sure that no pockets or air are lifting sections of it to the surface. 

4. When you think the fabric might be about the right color, rinse it in cold water and dry it. It will lighten as it dries. If the color isn't dark enough, put the fabric back in the tea bath for a bit longer. The fabric can be made several shades darker with extended time in the tea. 

To achieve very dark stains you may need to reheat the tea with the fabric in it. That's what I did with the darkest sample in the photo below. It took about half an hour to reach that lovely, nut brown, flesh color.

Four shades of flesh tones achieved through being left in the tea for longer periods of time.
They are placed on top of the original peach cotton.

Trick # 2

Faces made of real flesh are not a solid color! Color adds health and beauty to a face. Why else would we need makeup?

My flesh colored fabric needed to look healthy and alive, too! Instead of makeup,  I added color with colored pencils and embroidery floss. I started with a red pencil and a brown one. 

Using a blunted red pencil I added a soft blush to the cheeks, the inner parts of the ears, and the nose. After that I added definition to the ears and nose with a very sharp brown pencil. I felt like I was a little girl again, coloring in my coloring book! Definitely playtime for me.

The eyes and mouth were embroidered, but they really don't have to be. Drawing them with a fine tipped magic marker is just fine. Just make sure to test the markers on a small scrap of your fabric first! Sometimes the markers will bleed into the fabric and ruin it. 

Trick # 3

Some of the pieces in this pattern are pretty small, so they were a bit tricky to place. First I planned my layout, then I used a straight pin to get the pieces where I wanted them. I found that it was best to fuse one layer at a time to keep the pieces from slipping out of position under the iron. It helps enormously to avoid ironing back and forth on them. Simply press the iron straight down on top of the appliques and apply pressure.

Ta-da!

"Wrapped and Ready", the finished mug rug! 

I'd be grinning too if I had my Christmas packages all wrapped and ready to go!

And now it's time to move on to the next project. If I'm not mistaken, somebody wanted a table runner. Back to the sewing room!

A Table Topper, Some New Skills, and Wanting Your Opinion

A fat quarter here, a quarter of a yard there, a small scrap of something else, and an idea sprang into being. I didn't know what would come of these pretty fabrics when I bought them last summer.  I used some of them in "Mitten Weather", but a mug rug uses so little fabric, and I still had more than enough for a small holiday table topper.

I never would have guessed that one little pattern could take so long to make! It was my own fault, of course. The table topper, itself, stitched up quickly. It really is an easy little thing.

I can just see this made up in different color schemes and fabrics.
 Patriotic colors, soft baby colors, vibrant autumn colors, and on and on.

The time consuming part came from my gathering enough courage to take a plunge and do something totally new - an experiment in pattern making.

Until now, I've mainly illustrated my patterns with photos, and since my patterns have been based on applique, that technique has worked very well for me. Sometimes, though, a person needs a change of pace.  My newest table topper doesn't have one little bit of applique. Nothing at all for me to draw out by hand!

Using photographs for every step of making a pieced quilt, even for a tiny one like this, takes a ton of photos and lots of space. I felt that I needed to cut down on pages, so I showed the piecing and construction of the pattern entirely with computer drawn diagrams! That was the part took so long.

I've been learning how to make these illustrations bit by bit over the past year and a half, but using them exclusively for whole pattern turned out to be a much bigger bite than I'd expected! I still don't have it perfected. Ha! Not by a long shot!

So far, I've learned to work with geometric shapes only, but that's a beginning. I'm learning,  and I feel pretty good about figuring it all out on my own.

So...
     no applique,
           diagrams rather than photos to illustrate construction ...

I wonder how my customers will respond to this new side of me.

I will continue to make my applique patterns with lots of photos, and I'll likely mix photos and diagrams in more patterns in the future, but I really want to know how well this computer generated style of pattern works for you quilters.

Please let me know what you think!!

And happy stitching!!

Mitten Weather

Autumn is definitely here. My trees are turning wonderful shades of red and gold and my neighbor kiddos are raking the fallen leaves into "jumping piles".  They keep ringing my doorbell and asking me to watch them rake and jump. 

You see, I'm that funny old retired teacher who will sit on the porch and read stories to them or look at the bugs and caterpillars they have found - whether dead or alive, so my doorbell rings a lot! Too much fun!

But, I'd better get back to the point of this blog entry. 

As I said, autumn is here. That means winter is not far behind. And that thought led me to one of my favorite children's poems.

"Thumbs in the thumbs-place,

Fingers all together!

This is the song

We sing in mitten weather."

How perfect for a quick, little project. After "Autumn Flight" and "Snow Family Holiday" I was ready for a super easy mug rug.

Hope you like it!

"Mitten Weather"

If I have time, I might just make a few of these for the neighbor kiddos. 

I wonder how the pattern would look on a little book tote. Hmm...

Have a super day!

... and keep warm this winter!

... and don't forget your hat and mittens!

A Family of Snowmen for Christmas

Here it is! I've finished work on this little "Snow" family and their holiday preparations. Oh, my, what fun I had with these little characters!

Once again, I used a few new little bits plus lots of scraps from Christmases past. You may recognize the border fabric from last year's "Christmas Magic" mug rug and table runner. I so fell in love with that piece that I bought a LOT of it. You may be seeing it again. 

The holiday print is Blitzen by Basic grey for Moda #30290-14. It's actually from the year before last. My local quilt shop still has half a bolt or so, but it's getting harder to find. I went searching online and I found some on Etsy and some on another fabric website.

I have to tell you about my hubby's reaction to this quilt, but first I'll give you the background. 

When I first started quilting, 20 years ago or so, my guy simply didn't get it. Why was I cutting up nice fabric and putting little pieces together? He didn't even understand why the back of the quilt with the big fabric was not the top of the quilt. I tried to explain very carefully.

"Quilting is an art form," I said. "Designing these blocks and choosing the shapes and sizes of the pieces is creating a piece of art!"

"Nonsense," he responded. "Sewing is just sewing and a quilt is just something that goes on top of a bed." 

You can see we had a long way to go. 

Then, as time went on, he gradually became more interested in my quilts. When I started selling patterns he began to see things in a different light. "This quilting is really popular, isn't it?" he asked. Eventually, when looking at a new design, he said, "I didn't know you were such an artist."

Finally he had come around, but is it possible to go too far?

I brought up my finished Snow Family Holiday and the man asked for exact dimensions. Why? Because he wanted to go and order a frame for it!

"No, no, no!" I said. "It's a quilt! It's meant to be touched! It's fabric! You don't don't put a quilt behind glass unless it's a priceless antique in a museum!" Sigh... I wonder if we'll ever get it together. 

Well, time to get on to the next endeavor. 

Fall housecleaning, here we come!

"Snowballs in August" plus two quick tutorials

It's the middle of August, hot and humid, but I've been getting prepared for the cold and snow that are sure to come. I just finished stitching up a "Snowball Fight" in the form of soft, flannel lap quilt. Seasons don't match, but as a pattern maker, I really do have to plan ahead, and winter is really not that very far off.

"Snowball Fight"

It all started with the mittens. I really wanted to do something with mittens, but until I visited my local quilt shop I didn't know that I'd be making a snowball fight. You see, they had brought in these richly colored Woolies Flannels by Maywood.

Of course I couldn't resist touching the fabric. And that was all it took.

Hooked!

Soft, warm, oh so lovely. These were my mittens!

Luckily for me they had 10" layer cakes all ready to go. The idea for snowballs was born just like that!

And the best thing is that the fabrics and the whole idea of the quilt are great for boys as well as girls! How often does that happen?

Mittens + snowballs = ? 

A snowball fight! 

Giggle!

Love at first touch!

In addition to the layer cake I purchased some light flannel for the background, a bit of a deep red yardage for border accent, and a half yard of creamy white to make snowballs that could represent white snow.

How to make snowball blocks in any size you like: 

Start with a squares the finished size of the block. It's best to use a number divisible by three. Three inches, six inches, nine inches, twelve inches, etc. These make the math easiest.

Cut the squares the size of the finished block measurement plus 1/2". My blocks are 6" so I cut them at 6 1/2". 

Then cut four background squares for each block. They need to be exactly one third of the size of the finished block plus 1/2".

Six divided by three equals two. Add 1/2". So I cut my background squares at 2 1/2". Sewing is quick.

Photos tell the story.

Snowballs in the center, a couple of narrow borders, a wide border filled with mittens, and hand stitched scallops stringing the mitten together. 

That's it! Easy peasy! 

Well, except for having to rip out some seams and redo them plus other expected minor catastrophes along the way. You know how it goes. Just normal "stuff".

I really debated about the quilting. I considered spirals, and that idea was well liked by my facebook friends and by my friend, Midge. 

But I was worried. Flannel is thick and this little quilt has batting and a flannel back, too! Making smooth, large spirals on my little sewing machine would be hard enough on a quilt made of lightweight quilting cottons. I didn't even want to attempt stuffing this one into my machine and making large swirls. 

I considered this and that, and then I settled for stitch-in-the-ditch and straight line quilting on the snowball panel. My walking foot came in so very handy for that!

Since the inside was so plain, I decided to quilt the dickens out of the border. And, I was off on the cathedral windows free motion stitching adventure. It's a bit tedious, but I love this pattern!

If well done, the quilting looks like intersecting circles. 

Just one teensy little problem. My circles weren't really circles at all. In fact they were downright wobbly and irregular.  I needed A LOT more practice! 

This is a good sized border, so I practiced away. In fact, I got a ton of practice while quilting this border! It got a little bit better as I moved around the quilt. You can tell exactly which side of the border I started on, but who's going to look that closely?

The first side of my cathedral windows border

Stitching the cathedral window free motion quilting pattern:

Mark a grid on the area to be quilted. I chose a 1 1/4" grid. Smaller is actually easier than larger.

This is how the quilting goes. A diagram shows it best. 

Just follow the arrows. 

Down one square, over to the right, under to the left and repeat till you reach the end of the row. 

Then across to the right, scoop in on left in each square going up the grid till you get to the top. 

Scoop to the right and start over again. 

Draw your own grid or download one from the internet and practice with a pencil for a bit. Then try it on a piece of fabric. 

Here you can see my progress. I'm making my scoops too deep, but I didn't figure that out for a very long time. 

Filling in all around the mittens was a bit tricky, but I have to say, I enjoyed the work. 

I stitched up a cathedral window it each of the white snowball blocks, too. Just to decorate them up a bit. 

I'm really liking this little quilt and I've learned a lot from it as this was my very first actual quilt made of flannel. The soft warmth is perfect for cold winter evenings. 

I had lots of leftover fabric from the layer cake so I put it to use on the back of the quilt. A section of 9" strips inserted in the back cut down on the fabric I needed to buy and added a bit of color as well.

I've been thinking of other ways to work with flannel, too.

If I someday want to make one that's lighter weight, I might consider using a single layer of fleece on the back instead of batting and flannel backing. A cotton backing with the batting would also be lighter weight. For a summer quilt, two layers of flannel with no batting in between might be nice.

Happy stitching, everyone!

A Do it Yourself Christmas 2013

I just looked at the calendar and had a bit of a shock. Thanksgiving is almost on top of us and we have only six weeks left till Christmas! Where did the time go? There's so much to do, and so very little time!

I'm not the least bit interested in decorating with those expensive, but poorly made items that fly off assembly lines in some far away factory. Not only that, but for the special people in my life, I want to give gifts made by my own hands. I know I'll be be sewing right up to the very last minute, and I will definitely be visiting several of Craftsy's pattern shops to search through the fabulous ideas of some of my fellow designers.

If you are also looking for ideas, I hope you'll drop by my Craftsy shop to see what there is to see. Each of my patterns is easy to make. The piecing is simple and applique is a whiz with quick fusible web.

Just a Few of My Patterns

Ideas For Your Holiday Sewing

I've divided this blog into several very short idea sections. There are decorating ideas, projects for a few special people, and some super fast, last minute gifts. Check them out. You may find something you like. And if you can't find everything you need, do visit the shops of my fellow Craftsy designers.

Decorate Your Home

Set a pretty table, or hang a cheerful wall hanging. My pattern shop has four holiday table runners or wall hangings that make up quickly.  A free pattern, "Two Christmas Table Runners", was posted last December.

Table Runners or Wall Hangings

Scatter mug rugs everywhere. These are perfect for your small tables or your desk. They are just the right size to hold that holiday cup of cocoa and a cookie or two. Mug rugs also fit beautifully on a shelf or in a display amidst your Christmas cards.

Ready for Takeoff

Special Gifts for Special Folks

What to give the new mom? What about a pair of cute bibs and a matching burp cloth?

Elephant Walk

A new apron might be fitting for your favorite cook. This one fits all sizes. 

Coffee Break Apron

Mug Rugs for Everyone

Choose a mug rug that has personal significance for the recipient. Roll a special mug rug, put it in a pretty cup, and you'll have a very thoughtful gift.

Left: Heartthrob and Sunshine Brew  Right: Four Seasons

Several mug rugs were made specifically with children in mind. There's something to be said for having your own little snack mat. Your littles might enjoy "New Toys" or "Just Ducky".

Last Minute Gifts for Desperate Moments

This happens to all of us. You suddenly discover that you are short a gift or two at the very last moment. Don't panic!! Sew up a few of my "Zoom-zoom" coasters. 

If your gift is going to someone who sews, you can throw a mug rug kit together in minutes. Print off a pattern and cut fabric scraps for the piecing, background and border. Add a bit of trim, a spool of thread, a piece of batting, and toss everything into a pretty box. You'll have an instant gift that every sewist will appreciate.

Mug Rug Kit

May you enjoy happy holiday stitching and may all of your projects be done on time!